January 6: George Boston

George Boston was born on this day in 1905. A famous magic gadfly, he was an advisor on the Tony Curtis film, Houdini. He later was on the Board of Directors of Academy of Magical Arts at The Magic Castle, working closely with Bill Larsen. Boston also coauthored (with Robert Parrish) a highly entertaining, suspiciously fictional book called Inside Magic, which purported to explain Boston’s career of working with the great magicians of the 20th century. He included various stories about working as an assistant with magician Howard Thurston. He did not. He assisted Thurston’s brother in a failed business venture. However, Boston did work with Blackstone Sr., but that magician was never convinced of his value: Blackstone later joked that Boston’s book should have been called, Great Magicians Who Have Fired Me.